Virginia United: 2026

As we consider our best path forward, it may help to start thinking about myriad issues facing us as we approach the 2026 Primaries and eventually, the November 3, 2026 Midterm Elections, starting with issues in our own state. Virginia lawmakers have already begun prefiling legislation they hope to pass in the 2026 General Assembly session. Democrats, who will enjoy a trifecta holding the governor’s office and majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, have filed familiar bills on progressive policies.

Use this link to research bills proposed in Virginia for passage in 2026. https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-search.  

Below are summaries of a few proposals that will be considered by the Virginia legislature this year. Please consider and sort your own priorities. If you are not sure where your House of Representatives member stands on any issue, or wish to express your opinion on possible legislation, you can write to send them questions and/or share your opinions on proposed legislation. https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative.

• Democrats have proposed raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2028 while also increasing paid family and sick leave.

• Virginia’s environmental regulators are proposing to relax restrictions on what generators data centers can rely on during local outages, prompting concern about increased pollution. Under current rules, if a data center receives at least 14 days’ notice of a utility’s planned power outage, say, for substation or power line repair, the facility is allowed to rely on its backup generators during the outage as long as it obtains “Tier 4” generators, which are equipped with advanced pollution controls. But data centers argue that such generators are hard to get on short notice. proposed changes to data center pollution regulation.

• AND…The 451 data centers currently online in Virginia, home to the largest concentration of data centers in the world, use 3,583 megawatts daily, or enough electricity to power nearly 896,000 homes. That is 12% more than in all of Northern Virginia, according to testimony before the State Corporation Commission. virginia-power-grid-data-center-demand-social-cost and data centers create few jobs while draining resources.

• The legislature’s Joint Commission on the Future of Cannabis Sales has drafted a final proposal to launch a legal, regulated adult-use cannabis retail market in Virginia. The latest version sponsored by Commission Chair Paul Krizek, D-Fairfax, in the House of Delegates and Sens. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, and Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, in the Senate scraps the controversial local-opt-out clause, increases local taxing authority and builds a licensing regime designed to privilege small, independent, Virginia-based businesses over large medical-marijuana operators. joint-commission-unveils-changes-to-cannabis-bill.

• For years, a bipartisan coalition at the Virginia legislature has sought to empower localities to enact a new sales tax to cover the cost of local school construction. Governor Glenn Youngkin repeatedly vetoed the effort, but those involved have promised to bring it back and Governor Elect Abigail Spanberger is on board. In his veto of a local tax option to cover school costs, Governor Glenn Youngkin said it could increase Virginians’ tax bill by nearly $1.5 billion a year. But Democratic Roanoke Delegate Sam Rasoul said he would bring the effort back in 2026. “The localities get to choose and it’s by referendum,” Rasoul told Radio IQ. “So, the people of the locality get to choose if they want this 1% for school construction.” local-tax-option-to-pay-for-virginia-school-improvements.

• As doctors and health care workers rely more on artificial intelligence, Virginia lawmakers are balancing ways to set guardrails on AI systems without getting in the way of progress. Virginia’s Joint Commission on Technology and Science met on November 5, 2025, and unanimously backed recommendations for health care AI bills to propose during the 2026 General Assembly session. They include requiring health care providers to have AI system internal standards and transparency rules. Executive director Jodi Kuhn said stakeholders see AI as a tool to reduce workloads as health systems face employee shortages and workers struggle with burnout. She added that health care providers said they could benefit from regulatory clarity on the technology. generalassembly- on artificial-intelligence-patient-health-provider-care. 

• Virginia has a reading crisis. Too many of our children are sitting in classrooms struggling to read. The data are alarming and a call to action for us all: 43% of third graders cannot read proficiently. One in four kindergarteners is not meeting literacy benchmarks. Only 31% of fourth graders can read at or above proficiency. Virginia ranked 41st in reading recovery between 2019 and 2024. Average student achievement in Virginia remains almost a full grade level below 2019 levels in math and three-quarters of a grade level below in reading.

We are already moving forward on some issues:

The Virginia Department of Education on Tuesday launched its new school accountability system, and some Democrats are already eyeing potential changes. Lt. Gov.-Elect Ghazala Hashmi, the outgoing chair of the Senate Education and Health Committee, said the system needs to give more weight to students' progress, not just their proficiency. "These metrics are going to continue to show us that our schools that are in the lowest economic communities, the most impoverished communities, that those students are going to face greater challenges than students who are in affluent school districts," Hashmi said in an interview.